The Testament of Sherlock Holmes | |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Frogwares [lower-alpha 1] |
Publisher(s) | Frogwares Focus Home Interactive [2] |
Series | Sherlock Holmes |
Platform(s) | |
Release | Windows, PS3, Xbox 360Nintendo Switch
|
Genre(s) | Adventure |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
The Testament of Sherlock Holmes is an adventure video game in the Sherlock Holmes series developed by Frogwares and distributed by Focus Home Interactive. [2] After being delayed from an original 2010 release, the game was released in September 2012.
The game was developed primarily for consoles, and features a new graphic engine and gameplay mechanics. [5] It is based on the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, the protagonist of 56 short stories and 4 novels by Arthur Conan Doyle. Like many other games in the series, the game itself presents an original story and plot that is not based on any of Doyle's works. The Testament of Sherlock Holmes is set in the London of 1898 [6] between the events of Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments and Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter , with Holmes presented as the main suspect in a case in which he is unable to prove his innocence.
In London, 1898, a newspaper article accuses Holmes of the theft of a priceless set of jewels. With no solid evidence, Inspector Baynes says he will investigate further.
Holmes tells Watson he has an immediate appointment with the Bishop of Knightsbridge. Upon arriving, he discovers that the bishop has been tied up, burnt and mutilated. Holmes deduces that the culprits had been low class workers, who had been hired and given a special poison that caused a form of psychotic madness.
Holmes goes to the prison in order to interview Hans Schielman, a convicted poisoner. A fire begins in the cellblocks, during which Schielman escapes. It is implied that Holmes helped him escape in return for information about the poisoning case. Holmes and Watson discover the poison was administered through tainted opium from an opium den in Whitechapel.
Holmes wants to question the Bishop's nephew, Henry. With the help of tracking dog Toby, they track Henry to his hideout at the Wharf and find him within a smelting plant. Henry holds Holmes at gunpoint, but Toby accidentally knocks him into a vat of molten metal, killing him.
With the trail dead, Holmes returns to the theft of the necklace. Holmes breaks into the office of Oliver Farley, a journalist who seems intent on proving Holmes is a fraud. Using his deductive powers, Holmes discovers that Farley has recently been visited by local judge Sir Coutes Beckett. Holmes and Watson break into Beckett's house. Holmes leaves a mysterious package on Beckett's desk. They discover that Beckett has a collection of evidence against Holmes, making Watson suspicious. Watson spots Beckett and insists on talking to him. Holmes says that he is leaving, but Watson stays, and approaches the house, which suddenly explodes, causing Watson to be knocked out cold.
Holmes disappears, and is now wanted for questioning about the explosion. Watson finds Holmes hiding at a rented room in Whitechapel. Holmes tells Watson he is heading out of the city to continue the investigation. They arrive at a sawmill inhabited by three Russian anarchists. One of them warns that Sherlock Holmes is dangerous and shouldn't be trusted. Baynes and the police arrive to look for Holmes. Watson informs them Holmes is upstairs. Baynes goes after him alone and is soon thrown from the window.
Now branded a murderer, Holmes stages his own death and goes back into hiding. Watson tracks him down, where Holmes reveals everything he knows. Professor Moriarty has been plotting to cause panic by poisoning the poor of London, thus destabilising the government and creating a massive power vacuum, which Moriarty would fill with a puppet ruler loyal only to him. Knowing Holmes was the only one that could stop his plan, Moriarty recruited Inspector Baynes to help discredit him.
Holmes and Watson go to Moriarty's hideout, where they discover the three Russian anarchists have made bombs that will go off via radio transmitter, at key locations including Scotland Yard. Holmes learns that Moriarty is not in control of the scheme. After disconnecting the bombs from the radio transmitter, Holmes and Watson use another bomb to destroy the factory. It is revealed that Schielman was the power behind Moriarty. Under the influence of his own poison, Schielman attacks Moriarty and savagely bites at his throat. Moriarty shoots him, but is too late to save himself. With his dying breath, Moriarty asks Holmes to take care of his daughter, as he is the only one worthy to teach her. Holmes takes the child and treats her as his own, giving her an education and new life. In turn, he finally has a family of his own.
After the release of the ported Sherlock Holmes Versus Jack the Ripper , Frogwares and French publisher Focus Home Interactive got feedback from console players in particular that they wanted more adventure games with 3D graphics and production values to match what other genres are offering. Frogwares admitted to be eager in delivering one, though Waël Amr, the CEO, insisted on not forgetting about PC players, as some speculated. [7] The development of the game took nearly three years to complete. [8]
Waël Amr explained that in the past, the team has always been limited in reaching the PC market by trying to aim for a middle ground with PC owners, so that the specs have been lowered to match the greater share of the market. With this latest game being developed with the then current generation of consoles in mind, the development team was able to focus on polishing the graphics and creating the adventure game they'd always wanted to. [9]
The previous game in the series, Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the Ripper, was ported to console, but was simply a conversion. Rather than being ported from a PC version of the title, the team developed the title specifically for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 for the first time. [10]
Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the Ripper used drawings to depict its murder victims, hiding the full horror of the scenes out of respect for the real historical victims. Frogwares in the new title approaches on more mature and graphic moments. As the characters here are purely fictional, there is no restraint in showing the gory scenes.
With this, they first upgraded the graphics, and was first previewed in the screenshots. These images were released by Frogwares to every gaming website, most notably GameSpot and IGN . The first of these were posted in February 2011, and more surfaces the following months. [11] After the release of the first trailer and gameplay in E3 2011, Frogwares later released 4 more trailers with gameplay footage. [12] The fourth trailer was shown in E3 2012. [13] Destructoid and AdventureGamers.com were the first to play the game's demo. [14] These demos where later posted in GameSpot's Daily Demo, where two gameplay missions were posted in YouTube. [15] Wael also presented the game in Gameswelt and GotGame.com, entertaining with interviews about gameplay mechanics and the team's development timeline. [8] [16]
These upgrades were said to be a part of a broader move to attract more console players. This does, however, coincide with a change in Frogwares approach to difficulty. Previously, very difficult puzzles were once considered a good thing, and success was measured in how long it took people to finish the game. As of what Waël observed about, they were carefully watching the internet, counting the days until people started posting complete solutions. They admitted later on that it was a "stupid" approach, and put emphasis on accessibility and not getting stuck in the same place for too long. [17]
Wael said that the game would show Holmes' darker side, where he now uses blackmail, forgery, and isolation in exile away from society. Saying that, Holmes now relies on his survival skills and street-smart, paired in a cat-and-mouse style plot widely seen in other games such as Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction and Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy . [18]
Frogwares originally intended to release the game at the end of 2010, [19] but was pushed back for release in 2012; the release date of the game was set for 20 September.
Atlus obtained the North American publishing rights for the game. [20]
Aggregator | Score |
---|---|
Metacritic | PC: 73/100 [21] PS3: 65/100 [22] X360: 64/100 [23] |
Publication | Score |
---|---|
Adventure Gamers | [24] |
Computer Games Magazine | 8/10 [25] |
Destructoid | 7.5/10 [1] |
Game Informer | 7.5/10 [26] |
GameRevolution | [27] |
GameSpot | 8/10 [28] |
GamesRadar+ | [29] |
The game received mostly positive reviews. GameSpot awarded it 8 out of 10, [30] while Game Informer awarded it 7.5 out of 10. [31]
The game was awarded "Best of the Rest" in the Honorary Aggie Award category by the website Adventure Gamers, saying that "the surprising story of Sherlock's apparent fall from grace was thoroughly engaging right from the start and kept the momentum up through well-crafted characters and plenty of twists and turns. Topped off with stunning visuals and an impressive orchestral soundtrack, this was Frogwares at their finest". [32]
The Baker Street Irregulars are fictional characters who appear in three Sherlock Holmes stories, specifically two novels and one short story, by Arthur Conan Doyle. They are street boys who are employed by Holmes as intelligence agents. The name has subsequently been adopted by other organizations, most notably a prestigious and exclusive literary society founded in the United States by Christopher Morley in 1934.
"The Final Problem" is a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring his detective character Sherlock Holmes. It was first published in The Strand Magazine in the United Kingdom, and McClure's in the United States, under the title "The Adventure of the Final Problem" in December 1893. It appears in book form as part of the collection The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock Holmes is the overall title given to the series of Sherlock Holmes adaptations produced by the British television company Granada Television between 24 April 1984 and 11 April 1994.
The stories of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have been very popular as adaptations for the stage, and later film, and still later television. The four volumes of the Universal Sherlock Holmes (1995) compiled by Ronald B. De Waal lists over 25,000 Holmes-related productions and products. They include the original writings, "together with the translations of these tales into sixty-three languages, plus Braille and shorthand, the writings about the Writings or higher criticism, writings about Sherlockians and their societies, memorials and memorabilia, games, puzzles and quizzes, phonograph records, audio and video tapes, compact discs, laser discs, ballets, films, musicals, operettas, oratorios, plays, radio and television programs, parodies and pastiches, children's books, cartoons, comics, and a multitude of other items — from advertisements to wine — that have accumulated throughout the world on the two most famous characters in literature."
Sherlock Holmes has long been a popular character for pastiche, Holmes-related work by authors and creators other than Arthur Conan Doyle. Their works can be grouped into four broad categories:
Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the Mummy is an adventure game for Microsoft Windows, developed by Frogwares and released in 2002. The player controls Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, as he investigates the mysteriously abandoned mansion of British archeologist Lord Montcalfe. It is the first in the Sherlock Holmes series of adventure games developed by Frogwares and Viva Media, and was ported to the Nintendo DS in 2009.
Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Silver Earring is a video game developed by Frogwares and published in 2004 for Windows by Digital Jesters in Europe and Ubisoft in North America. While the game is "inspired by The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", it uses an original plotline — set in London in 1897 — and allows the player to investigate a murder as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson. A version for Wii was also released in Europe in 2011. By 2010, Secret of the Silver Earring had sold 500,000 copies worldwide.
Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened is an adventure video game developed by Frogwares and published in 2006 for Windows. The game follows an original plotline as Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. John H. Watson investigate a series of strange disappearances related to the Cthulhu Mythos.
Sherlock Holmes Versus Arsène Lupin is an adventure game developed by Frogwares. The fourth game in the Sherlock Holmes series, it was released in October 2007 and is distributed by Focus Home Interactive. It was preceded in 2002 by Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the Mummy, in 2004 by Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Silver Earring and in 2007 by Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened.
Frogwares is a Ukrainian video game development studio headquartered in Kyiv with subsidiary offices in Dublin, Ireland. The studio and its subsidiaries develop adventure games for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch as well as PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Wii, and mobile.
Sherlock Holmes is a series of adventure games developed by Frogwares. The games are based on Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. John H. Watson. While the franchise is based on Doyle's stories, each game has an original plot and storyline.
Sherlock is a British mystery crime drama television series based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes detective stories. Created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, the show stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as Doctor John Watson. Thirteen episodes have been produced, with four three-part series airing from 2010 to 2017. and a special episode that aired on 1 January 2016. The series is set in the present day in which it aired. The one-off special features a Victorian-period fantasy resembling the original Holmes stories.
Sherlock Holmes Versus Jack the Ripper is an adventure game for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360, developed by Ukrainian studio Frogwares and distributed by Focus Home Interactive. It is the fifth game in the Sherlock Holmes series of adventure games developed by Frogwares. The game takes place in the London district of Whitechapel in 1888, the historical site of the Jack the Ripper murders.
Dracula: Origin is a point-and-click adventure game for the PC based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Released by Frogwares in 2008, it follows the company's catalogue of adventure games such as the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series.
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is a 2011 period mystery action film and a sequel to the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes. The film is directed by Guy Ritchie and produced by Dan Lin, Joel Silver, Lionel Wigram and Susan Downey.
"The Great Game" is the third and final episode of the first series of the television series Sherlock. It was first broadcast on BBC One and BBC HD on 8 August 2010. It was written by Mark Gatiss and directed by Paul McGuigan.
Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of Osborne House is an adventure video game for the Nintendo DS handheld game console by Frogwares. It is the first in the Sherlock Holmes series to be made specifically for the DS.
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments is an adventure mystery video game in the Sherlock Holmes series developed by Frogwares in 2014 and distributed by Focus Home Interactive from 2014 to 2019 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. Frogwares regained the publishing rights to the title on Steam and the game reappeared on other platforms in the start of 2020. A Nintendo Switch version was released on February 3, 2022.
Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter is an adventure mystery video game in the Sherlock Holmes series developed by Frogwares for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2016. It was released for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on 25 October, while the PC version was released earlier on June 10. A Nintendo Switch version was released on April 7, 2022.
Sherlock Holmes Chapter One is an action-adventure mystery video game in the Sherlock Holmes series developed by Frogwares. It is also the first game in the series to be self-published by Frogwares itself. Described as an "origin story", the game follows a young Sherlock Holmes as he investigates a mystery in his family's home on the Mediterranean island of Cordona after his mother's death. It is the first open world title in the series.